In operational hydrology, estimation of the predictive uncertainty of hydrological models used for flood modelling is essential for risk-based decision making for flood warning and emergency ...management. In the literature, there exists a variety of methods analysing and predicting uncertainty. However, studies devoted to comparing the performance of the methods in predicting uncertainty are limited. This paper focuses on the methods predicting model residual uncertainty that differ in methodological complexity: quantile regression (QR) and UNcertainty Estimation based on local Errors and Clustering (UNEEC). The comparison of the methods is aimed at investigating how well a simpler method using fewer input data performs over a more complex method with more predictors. We test these two methods on several catchments from the UK that vary in hydrological characteristics and the models used. Special attention is given to the methods' performance under different hydrological conditions. Furthermore, normality of model residuals in data clusters (identified by UNEEC) is analysed. It is found that basin lag time and forecast lead time have a large impact on the quantification of uncertainty and the presence of normality in model residuals' distribution. In general, it can be said that both methods give similar results. At the same time, it is also shown that the UNEEC method provides better performance than QR for small catchments with the changing hydrological dynamics, i.e. rapid response catchments. It is recommended that more case studies of catchments of distinct hydrologic behaviour, with diverse climatic conditions, and having various hydrological features, be considered.
We performed a systematic review of the prevalence of metabolically healthy obesity (MHO). Medline, Web of Science and EMBASE were searched for original articles from inception to November 2013. Only ...prospective and cross‐sectional studies were included. After screening 478 titles, we selected 55 publications, of which 27 were population‐based studies and were used in the narrative synthesis. From the 27 studies, we identified 30 definitions of metabolic health, mainly based on four criteria: blood pressure, high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides and plasma glucose. Body mass index ≥30 kg m⁻² was the main indicator used to define obesity (74% of the studies). Overall, MHO prevalence ranged between 6% and 75%. In the studies that stratified the analysis by sex, prevalence was higher in women (seven out of nine studies) and in younger ages (all four studies). One‐third of the studies (n = 9) reported the response rate. Of these, four reported a response rate of ≥70% and they showed MHO prevalence estimates between 10% and 51%. The heterogeneity of MHO prevalence estimates described in this paper strengthens calls for the urgent need for a commonly established metabolic health definition.
The COVID-19 outbreak could be considered as an uncontrollable stressful life event. Lockdown measures have provoked a disruption of daily life with a great impact over older adults’ health and ...well-being. Nevertheless, eudaimonic well‐being plays a protective role in confronting adverse circumstances, such as the COVID-19 situation. This study aims to assess the association between age and psychological well-being (personal growth and purpose in life). Young–old (60–70 years) and old–old (71–80 years) community-dwelling Spaniards (N = 878) completed a survey and reported on their sociodemographic characteristics and their levels of health, COVID-19 stress-related, appraisal, and personal resources. Old–old did not evidence poorer psychological well-being than young–old. Age has only a negative impact on personal growth. The results also suggest that the nature of the COVID-19 impact (except for the loss of a loved one) may not be as relevant for the older adults’ well-being as their appraisals and personal resources for managing COVID-related problems. In addition, these results suggest that some sociodemographic and health-related variables have an impact on older adults’ well-being. Thus, perceived-health, family functioning, resilience, gratitude, and acceptance had significant associations with both personal growth and purpose in life. Efforts to address older adults’ psychological well-being focusing on older adults’ personal resources should be considered.
The present study comprises an intercomparison of different configurations of a statistical post-processor that is used to estimate predictive hydrological uncertainty. It builds on earlier work by ...Weerts, Winsemius and Verkade (2011; hereafter referred to as WWV2011), who used the quantile regression technique to estimate predictive hydrological uncertainty using a deterministic water level forecast as a predictor. The various configurations are designed to address two issues with the WWV2011 implementation: (i) quantile crossing, which causes non-strictly rising cumulative predictive distributions, and (ii) the use of linear quantile models to describe joint distributions that may not be strictly linear. Thus, four configurations were built: (i) a ''classical" quantile regression, (ii) a configuration that implements a non-crossing quantile technique, (iii) a configuration where quantile models are built in normal space after application of the normal quantile transformation (NQT) (similar to the implementation used by WWV2011), and (iv) a configuration that builds quantile model separately on separate domains of the predictor. Using each configuration, four reforecasting series of water levels at 14 stations in the upper Severn River were established. The quality of these four series was intercompared using a set of graphical and numerical verification metrics. Intercomparison showed that reliability and sharpness vary across configurations, but in none of the configurations do these two forecast quality aspects improve simultaneously. Further analysis shows that skills in terms of the Brier skill score, mean continuous ranked probability skill score and relative operating characteristic score is very similar across the four configurations.
Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and lethal tumor of the central nervous system. The natural history of treated GBM remains very poor with 5-year survival rates of 5 %. Survival has not ...significantly improved over the last decades. Currently, the best that can be offered is a modest 14-month overall median survival in patients undergoing maximum safe resection plus adjuvant chemoradiotherapy. Prognostic factors involved in survival include age, performance status, grade, specific markers (MGMT methylation, mutation of IDH1, IDH2 or TERT, 1p19q codeletion, overexpression of EGFR, etc.) and, likely, the extent of resection. Certain adjuncts to surgery, especially cortical mapping and 5-ALA fluorescence, favor higher rates of gross total resection with apparent positive impact on survival. Recurrent tumors can be offered re-intervention, participation in clinical trials, anti-angiogenic agent or local electric field therapy, without an evident impact on survival. Molecular-targeted therapies, immunotherapy and gene therapy are promising tools currently under research.
Background
The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of an abdominal wall surgery unit on postoperative complications (within 90 days postoperatively), hernia recurrence and chronic ...postoperative inguinal pain after elective recurrent inguinal hernia repair.
Methods
We conducted a retrospective cohort study of all adult patients who underwent elective recurrent inguinal hernia repair between January 2010 and October 2021. Short- and long-term outcomes were compared between the group of patients operated on in the abdominal wall surgery unit and the group of patients operated on by other units not specialized in abdominal wall surgery. A logistic regression model was performed for hernia recurrence.
Results
A total of 250 patients underwent elective surgery for recurrent inguinal hernia during the study period. The patients in the abdominal wall surgery group were younger (
P
≤ 0.001) and had fewer comorbidities (
P
≤ 0.001). There were no differences between the groups in terms of complications. The patients in the abdominal wall surgery group presented fewer recurrences (15% vs. 3%;
P
= 0.001). Surgery performed by the abdominal wall surgery unit was related to fewer recurrences in the multivariate analysis (HR = 0.123; 95% CI = 0.21–0.725;
P
= 0.021).
Conclusions
Specialization in abdominal wall surgery seems to have a positive impact in terms of recurrence in recurrent inguinal hernia repair. The influence of comorbidities or type of surgery (i.e., outpatient surgery) require further study.
Establishing the phase diagram of hydrogen is a major challenge for experimental and theoretical physics. Experiment alone cannot establish the atomic structure of solid hydrogen at high pressure, ...because hydrogen scatters X-rays only weakly. Instead, our understanding of the atomic structure is largely based on density functional theory (DFT). By comparing Raman spectra for low-energy structures found in DFT searches with experimental spectra, candidate atomic structures have been identified for each experimentally observed phase. Unfortunately, DFT predicts a metallic structure to be energetically favoured at a broad range of pressures up to 400 GPa, where it is known experimentally that hydrogen is non-metallic. Here we show that more advanced theoretical methods (diffusion quantum Monte Carlo calculations) find the metallic structure to be uncompetitive, and predict a phase diagram in reasonable agreement with experiment. This greatly strengthens the claim that the candidate atomic structures accurately model the experimentally observed phases.
Strong, tough, stretchable, and self‐adhesive hydrogels are designed with intrinsically unstructured proteins. The extraordinary mechanical properties exhibited by these materials are enabled by an ...integration of toughening mechanisms that maintain high elasticity and dissipate mechanical energy within the protein networks.
•Wavelet packet transform were applied to vibration signal for roughness monitoring.•Monitoring of roughness using a single sensor without other information sources.•Three diverse wavelet packet ...methods were compared using forty mother wavelets.•The optimal wavelet packets for roughness were found in specific frequency ranges.•Packet feature extraction was analysed to determine the optimum decomposition level.
The wavelet packet transform method decomposes a time signal into several independent time-frequency signals called packets. This enables the temporary location of transient events occurring during the monitoring of the cutting processes, which is advantageous in monitoring condition and fault diagnosis. This paper proposes the monitoring of surface roughness using a single low cost sensor that is easily implemented in numerical control machine tools in order to make on-line decisions on workpiece surface finish quality. Packet feature extraction in vibration signals was applied to correlate the sensor signals to measured surface roughness. For the successful application of the WPT method, mother wavelets, packet decomposition level, and appropriate packet selection methods should be considered, but are poorly understood aspects in the literature. In this novel contribution, forty mother wavelets, optimal decomposition level, and packet reduction methods were analysed, as well as identifying the effective frequency range providing the best packet feature extraction for monitoring surface finish. The results show that mother wavelet biorthogonal 4.4 in decomposition level L3 with the fusion of the orthogonal vibration components (ax+ay+az) were the best option in the vibration signal and surface roughness correlation. The best packets were found in the medium-high frequency DDA (6250–9375Hz) and high frequency ADA (9375–12500Hz) ranges, and the feed acceleration component ay was the primary source of information. The packet reduction methods forfeited packets with relevant features to the signal, leading to poor results for the prediction of surface roughness. WPT is a robust vibration signal processing method for the monitoring of surface roughness using a single sensor without other information sources, satisfactory results were obtained in comparison to other processing methods with a low computational cost.
Knowledge of vertebrate territoriality and spatial use is a topic of great interest in the study of animal behaviour and conservation biology. Investigating the plasticity of territory boundaries, ...the shape of territories and how territories can be modified depending on their owners is important to deepen our knowledge of the behaviour of territorial species. We analysed the variation and tested the similarity of the distribution area of individuals from the same territory between 2015 and 2021, using data from 51 Bonelli's eagles (Aquila fasciata) from 22 different territories, tagged with GPS/GSM transmitters in eastern Spain. We calculated the percentage of overlap between the territories of the same individual in different years using the 95% kernel density estimator. We also analysed the changes in territory size and shape following the replacement of territory owners either by a single individual or by the whole pair. Our results show that territories retain the same shape and extent regardless of the occupying members, and that their boundaries change little over time. Identifying and maintaining large eagle territories, regardless of their owners, is therefore key to ensuring the long‐term recovery of these threatened species.
Investigating the plasticity of territory boundaries, the shape of territories and how territories can be modified depending on their owners is important to deepen our knowledge of the behaviour of territorial species. We analysed the variation and tested the similarity of the distribution area of individuals from the same territory between 2015 and 2021, using data from 51 Bonelli's eagles (Aquila fasciata) from 22 different territories, tagged with GPS/GSM transmitters in eastern Spain. We also analysed the changes in territory size and shape following the replacement of territory owners either by a single individual or by the whole pair. Our results show that territories retain the same shape and extent regardless of the occupying members, and that their boundaries change little over time. Identifying and maintaining large eagle territories, regardless of their owners, is therefore key to ensuring the long‐term recovery of these threatened species.
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